


Shifting

by 9_of_Clubs



Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU, Angst, Ficlet, M/M, Memory Alteration, Mentions of Cas, Questions of Reality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-01
Updated: 2012-12-01
Packaged: 2017-11-19 23:03:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/578589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/9_of_Clubs/pseuds/9_of_Clubs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Most nights, Balthazar wakes up screaming. And Dean is there, but isn’t.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shifting

“You’re different.” Balthazar tells him, voice hoarse from screaming, eyes still heavy from sleep and nightmares. “You’re you.” There’s regret in the tone, a heavy sweeping despair.“But you’re different.” Still he doesn’t refuse the hand, still he curls into the warmth of Dean’s body, because it’s solid and safe and comfort, and that’s all he has even if it’s not the same. Not the same fingers, not the same voice, a Dean, but not _his_ Dean.

The change he sees in all the little things, it’s not malicious, just all wrong. Like he blinked without realizing it and Dean shifted in some irreconcilable way. One that changes nothing and everything. As the days pass, the gnawing fear that it’ll never go back eats away at him, attacks without warning, never truly settles.

Dean holds him, it’s so _close_ it hurts, but the feverish panic only grows.

For Dean, It’s these nights that are the worst. Easier when the blonde asks for the angels, when he cries out that Cas is gone, because Dean can lie through that, tell him that Cas, whoever he is, is coming back, is busy, is trapped, a million different stories. And usually, Balthazar forgets those fits by morning... or he just doesn't mention them. He can never really be sure.

But when it seems like everything is normal for Balthazar except Dean. When it’s him who is suddenly the stranger, the one Balthazar looks at with alien eyes, he doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t know what to do.

“You’re different.” He hears again, Balthazar’s fingers twisting into his shirt, the blonde head burrowing into his body. “You’re different and I miss you.” The words are lost, colored by a stark loneliness that makes Dean afraid, by anguish he doesn’t think has an answer. It cuts through him, makes his heart ache. Valiantly he tries to push it away, to not think about how it was before. Before the accident.

“I know,” He says quietly, because what else can he say. “I know.”

He holds on and hopes he can be enough.


End file.
